THE ELEGANT UNIVERSE

From the website for PBS's Nova:

One of the most ambitious and exciting theories ever proposed—one that may be the long-sought "theory of everything," which eluded even Einstein—gets a masterful, lavishly computer-animated explanation from bestselling author-physicist Brian Greene, when NOVA presents the nuts, bolts, and sometimes outright nuttiness of string theory.

Also known as superstring theory, the startling idea proposes that the fundamental ingredients of nature are inconceivably tiny strings of energy, whose different modes of vibration underlie everything that happens in the universe. The theory successfully unites the laws of the large—general relativity—and the laws of the small—quantum mechanics—breaking a conceptual logjam that has frustrated the world's smartest scientists for nearly a century.

Watch all three parts of this documentary here.

In addition to a brief history of physics since Newton, as well as a very nice explanation of string theory, here are some things I learned from watching The Elegant Universe.

* Physicists might have finally figured out how to unify gravity with the other three forces in the universe.
* There might be eleven dimensions.
* There might be an infinite number of universes.
* God might exist, which the video doesn't come right out and say, but the implication is obvious.  Unicorns, too.

If that's not enough to grab you, then I'll say this: to me, as a forty something man, this show is as meaningful and thought provoking as Carl Sagan's Cosmos was to me when I was twelve.  Sure, I'm no scientist, but you don't have to be in order to get a grip on what's happening in physics.  And trust me, it pays extraordinarily well to have a handle on what scientists are telling us is the nature of reality.  Well, what they were telling us a decade ago; it was produced in 2003, but, holy hell, this is some truly mind-bending shit.

Go watch it right now!

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